Relationships

Sometimes I can’t decide which bothers me worse: seeing skeezy white men come to China to pick up “hot Asian chicks,” or listening to my foreigner friends say in hushed tones, “Well, I’d never date a Chinese person.” Both Shoshannah and Collin have made the latter statement to me. Shoshannah was more blunt about it. “I’m not in to the ‘yellow fever,’” she said, “I just don’t find Chinese guys hot.”
Just as a point of order, there are 1.3 billion people living in China. In the Chinese diaspora, there are probably several million more. That means that total world population of Chinese people, or people of Chinese decent, may be close 2 billion. How can anyone generalize over such an enormous population? Beyond the logical problems with her argument, is the underlying racism which I find offensive in the extreme. Why did she come to China if she has such a racist attitude toward Chinese people?
Collin bothers me somewhat more. I was having a chat with him in which he talked about how happy and comfortable he is being single. Then he said that he hasn’t met anyone here in China who he really wants to date.

“There are a billion people in this country!” I laughed, “You’ve got endless choices!”

“Ah, yes,” he said, his voice growing quieter, “But you see, I don’t want to date a Chinese person.”

Why not? I didn’t ask the question and I didn’t push the issue because it didn’t seem tactful at the time, but it bothered me. I can understand not being comfortable dating someone if they do not speak your language. Talking is an important part of dating, so if you can’t talk to someone very easily it would be hard to date. But there are plenty of people in China with excellent English, and they are easy to find since they are always hanging out with foreigners. And that’s not what Collin said. He implied it was a person’s nationality, not their language skills, that ruled them out as potential dates.
I wonder what it’s like on the other side? Are there Chinese people out there who specifically seek out foreigners to date because of the exotic appeal? Similarly are there people who are utterly repulsed by the idea of dating a waiguo ren? Oddly enough, neither of these ideas offend me at all. When it’s a skeezy white guy picking up young Chinese girls, it’s disgusting.
Also it makes sense to me that a Chinese person, who spent their entire lives in China, lived only among Chinese people, and entirely within a Chinese cultural milieu, would naturally desire a Chinese partner, and it would never occur to them to seek out a foreigner for romance. But if an American were to say to me, “I would never date anyone who wasn’t the same race as me,” I would say, “So you’re a bigot then?”
What does this double standard say about me? Is it a double standard? Is it wrong to assume that in a white/non-white relationship, the white person is being exploitative?